Push Your Relationship Refresh Button

5 ways to get started

Let’s face it, we can all use a little “R & R” when it comes to our relationships in life. Reflection around our behavior with the people we care about, including ourselves, AND the choice to Respond to what we have reflected on with an intentional positive forward action step. 

Millennials place a high importance on work-life balance which includes caring for loved ones. 
 

A positive shift from “all work and no play” is establishing a trend of an integrated life balance that supports happiness and emotional health.

Let’s follow their lead by taking a moment to push the pause button in life to thoughtfully reflect on 5 individual ways, each with its own unique 24-hour action call, to refresh your relationships.

As you read through each tip, write down the suggested a 24-hour action step you want to transfer into your relationship behavior and take action on it. Let’s jump in:

#1 Perhaps you have heard of the story about the 3 Blind Man and the Elephant. Each blind man touched a different part of the elephant: the tail, the leg and the trunk. Although each one reported an entirely different experience, collectively they all exploring the same thing: the elephant. 

While your perception of a situation is true it may not include the totality of truth surrounding the situation. According to Webster, the definition of relationship is connection between people. 

Your 24-Hour Action Step: If you desire to create positive connection with people you care about then over the next 24 hours expand your ability to tune into other people’s perspectives. Avoid assuming that people have the same perception that you do. Seek to see things from another person’s point of view.  Remain curious and fascinated, ask questions for clarity, the more info you have the more likely you are to tune into a collaborative connection. Let go of the need to be right and explore what you might learn as you expand your own perceptions to include the entire elephant in life.

#2 Two essential needs every human being has are the need for safety and connection. As we understand that we see other people as we are, we will be able to look at each relationship we have with another person as an opportunity to learn and grow. 

When we meet people that flare us up emotionally in a negative way we will gain the ability to see those encounters as teachable moments as they reveal to us where we are stuck in our ability to set healthy boundaries, forgive, understand & not take things personally. 

Your 24-Hour Action Step: Choose three acts that create a positive connection with people at work and home.

#3 Once upon a time, there was a beggar sitting on a box. Day after day he held out his hand to people on the street asking for money. This went on for several years until one day a curious child stood in front of the beggar and asked: “Sir, what’s in your box?”. The beggar crunched his face up and said, “I don’t know, it’s just a box I sit on.” The curious child was persistent and asked the beggar to open the box and look inside. To his shock and surprise, he found the box, he was sitting on for years, was filled with gold.

You are responsible for your own happiness. Sustainable happiness flows from the inside out not the outside in. 

Your 24-Hour Action Step: Happiness is an inside job. Over the next 24 hours, focus on two activities in life that light you up, create a sense of joy that is not dependent upon another human being. As you fill yourself up with those things in life that bring you joy apart from other people, you will step off of the roller coaster that comes from demanding that other people are responsible for your happiness. The upside of this experience comes in the form of positive resources to share with those around you. You can’t give out what you have not mastered within.

#4 Mirror neurons were discovered in the 1990s and they imitate the actions and emotions of other people. They are brilliantly designed to help us empathize and understand. They also imitate positive or negative emotions. Basically, you have the ability to evoke an emotional response in other people, positive or negative. It’s like having a hidden super hero power for good…or not.

How you choose to show up emotionally in a relationship literally impacts the connection you will experience…positive or negative. In NLP, neuro-linguistic programming, they refer to this as eliciting states of behavior. Studies reveal that a positive emotional expression from one person can lift negative energy put off by another person. 

Your 24-Hour Action Step: Make a conscious choice today to show up with a positive attitude in every encounter you have with another human being. Smile, laugh, use encouraging words and explore kind, empathetic responses. See how many negative encounters you can flip into the positive by choosing the response you would want to experience.

#5 Dr. Emoto’s water studies from Japan came to my awareness during my experience with advanced cancer. The impact visually inspired me to commit to keeping watch on the words I used throughout my treatment and subsequent healing. 

Basically, our bodies are made up of 70% water. Dr. Masaru Emoto, author of The Hidden Messages in Water, discovered that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concen¬trated thoughts are directed toward them. 

He found that water from clear springs exposed to loving words, shows brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake patterns under the microscope. In contrast, polluted water, water exposed to negative words, forms incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull colors and dark holes. To me, this speaks of the POWER of positive words all the way down to the cellular level. 

Your 24-Hour Action Step: Watch what you say, your body is listening. Speak life into your body by using kind, loving, supportive words towards yourself and others. Your choice of words literally has the POWER to create a positive connection or negative disconnect. Speak the truth in love. The words you choose to use when communicating with other people will either open or shut the door to connection and the choice is yours. Is your interior script a negative one? 

Remember, you give out to others what you listen to and speak about between your two ears. Perhaps it’s time to re-write your interior script to create a positive, life giving dialogue and along with it, healing inside and out. 

The above 5 ways to hit the relationship refresh button came from Lauren’s 30 Day/3 Minute a Day Personal Excellence/Wellness Program: Cultivate Healthy Relationships. 

Author Bio

Lauren E Miller, has a Masters in Adult Education with a Certification in Human Resources Development. She has personally conquered two of life's top stressors at the same time, advanced cancer and divorce. Now Google's #1 Stress Relief Expert, Award Winning Author, HRD Trainer and Certified Sherpa Executive Coach, Lauren provides process driven programs and custom trainings with structure, guidance, support and accountability designed to create positive change in behavior resulting in positive impact on business (IOB) and life purpose Visit www.LaurenEMiller.com Connect Lauren E Miller Follow @LaurenEMiller7